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5.1.2 Studying the Future
In order to start preparing all of our students for the next century, we need to start teaching them skills that will help them analyze the future. I really believe that one of the biggest mistakes we make is to think about history as being about the past rather than being about the future.
What I mean by this
is that I know as much about the future as I know about the past. For
some people that sounds weird, but if you stop and think about it, we
all know that the sun is going to rise tomorrow, I am pretty sure about
that. In fact, I am more sure that the sun is going to rise tomorrow than
I am about a whole lot of things in the past. This is because we keep
changing our minds about things in the past. For example, when I was in
school the United States won the War of 1812. When my sons were in school,
the curriculum had been revised and the British were
proclaimed victors in the War of 1812. These days, kids are taught that
it was a tie. Our knowledge of the past is notconcrete and in this way
can be compared to our knowledge of the future
If you guys didn't
think you knew something about the future, you wouldn't be sitting here
right now. Sometimes weare more certain about the distant future than
the near future. I'm not nearly as certain whether I am going to be alive
next week as I am that I won't be alive 60 years from know. But, you see
it is not predicting the future, it is studying the future that is important.
Studying the future means that we can interact with that future and help
make it happen. Understanding global interdependence, that is the study
of the future. Everything from the environment to politics to culture
is going to become more and more unified. If we don't train our kids how
to study the future they're going to be helpless. This is difficult because
our predecessors lived in a world where they could have a book for a hundred
years without revision. These days, we do not have the luxury of such
stability around. Now everybody can break
out of their boxes, and go a whole lot of different directions. Education
is one of the things that makes that possible.
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What do we as teachers need to do to start preparing our students for the future? | |
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Mr. Andrews is an Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition teacher for a local high school. His students are mainly seniors and have had the same writing practice and courses over the course of their careers in school. How can he structure his class in order to make his students see past just writing a paper (like a book report)? | |
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